An assembled printed circuit board (PCBa) is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets that are laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. A PCBa also generally includes various circuit elements such as capacitors, resistors, processors or other active devices that have been manufactured into the actual substrate of the board. Today, PCBa's are used in virtually all but the simplest commercially produced electronic devices.
When products are manufactured, specific products are generally provided with unique identifiers, commonly referred to as stock keeping units (SKUs) that are used as a means of identifying a specific product as being distinct from other products. For example, a box of widgets produced by a company may have a SKU number such as 1234 assigned to the box of widgets and/or each of the individual widgets. The SKU is used in various ways for inventory management by the company. In the case of products having PCBa's, a number of different products having different SKUs may utilize a common PCBa that has been modified to perform different functions for the different products. That is, particular features or functionalities of a PCBa may be activated or deactivated during manufacture of a specific product to provide the specific functions of the product.
This type of manufacturing design is undertaken in order to produce PCBa's faster and cheaper as altering a “generic” PCBa to become a specific PCBa for identical or related SKUs is generally cheaper than designing and manufacturing several PCBa's from scratch. That is, while it may be initially more expensive to design a PCBa that can be incorporated into different products, at a certain point in the number of products and the volume of products being manufactured and sold, this approach becomes substantially cheaper.
That is, PCBa's for similar SKUs are often manufactured using automated processes wherein generic PCBa's having common components for similar SKUs are initially manufactured. After the initial manufacturing, the PCBa is processed to individualize the PCBa for a specific SKU. These processing steps commonly include modifying wire bonding configurations, connecting jumper pins with jumpers, turning on or off dual-in-line package (DIP) switches, connecting traces with zero-ohm resistors (i.e. bridging), and/or attaching additional components.
In general, many of these steps of individualizing a PCBa to become the specific PCBa for a specific SKU are performed manually in overseas manufacturing locations and require a number of different workers for the different steps. Thus, if a generic PCBa must be modified to become a specific product, there will be a lag time between making the decision to order a specific PCBa and the time to delivery. As such, the processing of a generic PCBa to become a PCBa for a specific product can be time-consuming and expensive. As is known, any lag time can be detrimental to suppliers and businesses in getting their product to the market as quickly as possible to meet changing consumer demands.
A PCBa is often created in a larger panel that consists of many smaller individual PCBa's that will be used and individually incorporated into the final product. In this process, the larger panel is broken up into individual PCBa's or “depaneled” as a further step in the processing of the PCBa. There are various techniques typically used to depanel a PCBa panel. The techniques may include: breaking the panel by hand along a groove; using a rotary blade to cut along a pre-scoured V-groove line; using a punch to punch out a PCBa from the panel; using a depaneling router to mill a connecting tab between PCBa's; and using a saw to cut through the panel. Newer techniques include laser cutting using either a UV laser or CO2 laser.
Depaneling can occur at various times during PCBa processing, depending on the product, however it is often performed in a separate location than the processing for individualizing the PCBa. As is well understood, it can be time-consuming and complicated to coordinate all the necessary post-processing steps and then transport the product overseas to the market destination.
A review of the prior art reveals several references that are directed to processing PCB panels or semiconductor substrates using laser systems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,943,490 teaches a method of cutting a PCB panel using a laser; U.S. Pat. No. 8,158,493 teaches a laser system for processing PCBs using an ultrashort pulse laser system; U.S. Pat. No. 6,753,500 teaches a method and apparatus for depaneling a PCB or integrated circuit (IC) unit using a laser; US Patent Publication No. 2011/0017716 teaches a system for processing devices such as PCBs by direct-write laser ablation; U.S. Pat. No. 7,935,941 teaches a method for selectively cutting links on a semiconductor substrate using a plurality of laser beams; US Patent Publication No. 2006/0186096 teaches a method of marking semiconductor wafers using a laser; and US Patent Publication No. 2005/0194353 teaches a process for forming traces on a PCB using laser etching.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a technology that reduces the time, expense, logistical complications and labor required for PCBa post-processing, as well as reducing the board size of a PCBa. There is also a need for a technology that decreases the lag time from designing a PCBa for a specific SKU and getting the product to the market.